2011 world junior championshiphttp://www.usahockeymagazine.com/taxonomy/term/640/all
enThree Cheers for the Red, White and Bluehttp://www.usahockeymagazine.com/article/2011-02/three-cheers-red-white-and-blue
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<a href="/node/99">USA Hockey Magazine</a> </div>
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<p>They were islands of stars and stripes in a sea of red and white. Their voices may have been drowned out, but their enthusiasm did not take <br />a back seat to anyone.</p>
<p>While organizers estimate that almost 70 percent of the ticket packages for the 2011 IIHF World Junior Championship were sold to Canadian fans, those lucky few Americans who attended the games inside HSBC Arena were loud and proud in their support of the U.S. squad.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been very impressed with the crowds,&rdquo; said Keith Allain, who was coaching in his fifth World Junior tournament including three as head coach. &ldquo;You would never have envisioned that even four years ago, so I&rsquo;ve been impressed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The 2011 World Junior Championship will go down as the most successful and most attended event ever hosted by USA Hockey. The 11-day tournament drew 331,297 fans for the 31 total games at HSBC Arena in Buffalo and Dwyer Arena on the campus of Niagara University. </p>
<p>This year&rsquo;s attendance mark shattered the previous mark set in 2005 when 195,771 attended games in Grand Forks and Thief River Falls, N.D., but fell short of the all-time mark of 453,282 set at the 2009 World Juniors in Ottawa.</p>
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<p>The house was rocking at the HSBC Arena during the 2011 IIHF World Junior Championship. While Canadian fans flocked across the border in record numbers, American fans were loud and proud in their support of the U.S. National Junior Team that fought back from a disappointing semifinal loss to claim the bronze medal, marking the first time the U.S. Junior Team won back-to-back medals at the prestigious international tournament.</p>
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<a href="/issue/2011-02">2011-02</a> </div>
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http://www.usahockeymagazine.com/article/2011-02/three-cheers-red-white-and-blue#comments2011 world junior championshipFeatureThu, 27 Jan 2011 22:25:22 +0000admin3893 at http://www.usahockeymagazine.comJack Campbell: M’m! M’m! Great!http://www.usahockeymagazine.com/article/2011-02/jack-campbell-m%E2%80%99m-m%E2%80%99m-great
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Jack Campbell’s Goaltending Heroics Place Him In Distinctive Company </div>
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By:&nbsp;</div>
<a href="/node/12">Harry Thompson</a> </div>
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<p>As he stepped into the media fray, Jack Campbell&rsquo;s trademark smile and upbeat attitude were nowhere to be found. His usually bright, smiling eyes were masked by a pinkish hue and glossed over with the bitter tears of disappointment.</p>
<p>For the first time in his international hockey career, the 18-year-old Port Huron, Mich., native found himself and his teammates on the outside looking in at a gold-medal game. It was a foreign feeling for the most decorated goaltender in USA Hockey history, and it didn&rsquo;t feel very good.</p>
<p>As the ultimate team player in the ultimate team game, Campbell wanted nothing more than to help the newcomers to the U.S. squad experience the thrill of standing at the top of the hockey world, just as he did last year when he helped beat Canada on Canadian ice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Every time I step on the ice I want to do whatever I can to help the team out,&rdquo; said Campbell, who earned the IIHF directorate award as the tournament&rsquo;s top goaltender. </p>
<p>&ldquo;There are a lot of guys in the locker room who have won gold medals before and a lot of these guys haven&rsquo;t won a [gold medal at] World Juniors. I went out there and battled as hard as I possibly could to try to get this done for the guys.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In the end, Campbell&rsquo;s 37-save effort in a, 4-1, semifinal loss to Canada was the only bright spot of the night, and his teammates were sick about that.</p>
<p>&ldquo;He had a great game, and we didn&rsquo;t help him out a lot. That&rsquo;s our fault,&rdquo; said U.S. forward Jerry D&rsquo;Amigo, who locked arms with Campbell on the blue line as the Americans sang the National Anthem.</p>
<p>&ldquo;He stayed in there and he battled hard. He&rsquo;s a great competitor, and you wish you could&rsquo;ve done more for him.&rdquo;</p>
<p>As anyone familiar with the position can attest, a key attribute for any successful goaltender is a short memory, and less than 24 hours after the loss Campbell stood near his stall in the USA locker room watching teammates playfully wrestling as rap music echoed around the room. There was still one more game to play and the bronze medal was up for grabs.</p>
<p><span class="inline inline-left"><img src="http://ushockeymagazine.com/sites/default/files/images/010041590.jpg" alt="" title="" class="image image-_original " width="300" height="184" /></span>And as he typically does, Campbell seized the moment like he snags a shot with his catching glove.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t lie to you, I wanted gold,&rdquo; he said after backstopping the Americans to bronze in what was the first World Juniors medal of any sort won on home soil. &ldquo;I had my heart set on that. The loss to Canada &hellip; was heartbreaking. It was tough to come back from.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The next morning Campbell bid farewell to his U.S. teammates and headed back over the border with hordes of Canadian hockey fans, ready to finish out his season with the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League. </p>
<p>Beyond that there&rsquo;s a bright future for the first-round draft pick of the Dallas Stars, who hopes to continue working with NTDP goalie coach Joe Exeter, who Campbell credits with much of his success.</p>
<p>Mention names like McCartan, Craig, Barrasso, Vanbiesbrouck, Richter and Miller, and Campbell&rsquo;s smile stretches from ear to ear. Ask him what it feels like to be a part of such a special fraternity and his face turns as red as the stripes on the American flag he represents so admirably.</p>
<p>&ldquo;To be honest I&rsquo;ve never thought about it, but just thinking about that now, thinking about those names, it&rsquo;s pretty incredible,&rdquo; said Campbell, who along with teammate Jason Zucker, became the first American males to earn three gold medals at IIHF events. </p>
<p>&ldquo;Those guys were marquee goalies for the U.S. and set the bar for our country and what we&rsquo;ve been able to do to develop goalies. I&rsquo;m so young that I don&rsquo;t have time to even think about that. I&rsquo;m just trying to get better each day and help the U.S. win another medal each time I put on the uniform.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In addition to his IIHF hardware, Campbell is Team USA&rsquo;s all-time leader in each statistical category for goaltenders at the IIHF World Under-18 Championship with nine wins, 0.80 goals-against averages, .966 save percentage and five shutouts. He finished his NTDP career with the lowest goals-against average in program history (2.14) while also setting the record for shutouts in a career (10). </p>
<p>&ldquo;His record speaks for itself. The championships he&rsquo;s won, the games he&rsquo;s won. Just as important he&rsquo;s a fantastic kid,&rdquo; said U.S. Head Coach Keith Allain, himself a former goaltender.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Jack has the right personality. He&rsquo;s able to put mistakes behind him and deliver in the big moments. Having done it in the past he has the confidence to know that he can do it again in the future. Jack has that kind of confidence.&rdquo;</p>
<p>On and off the ice, nobody works harder than Campbell, and it&rsquo;s safe to say that nobody loves the game more. While it&rsquo;s hidden beneath his mask, Campbell practices and plays the game with a huge smile on his face.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The position of goaltender is so tough, both <span class="inline inline-right"><img src="http://ushockeymagazine.com/sites/default/files/images/010041608.jpg" alt="" title="" class="image image-_original " width="300" height="233" /></span>mentally and physically that if you don&rsquo;t enjoy it and you&rsquo;re not excited by the challenge and you don&rsquo;t get a thrill out of it, you&rsquo;re not going to be successful,&rdquo; Allain said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Jack is one of those guys who enjoys the battle, enjoys the competition and enjoys the pressure. I think you see the result of that.&rdquo;<br />Having so much success at such a young age, it&rsquo;s easy to forget that Campbell will be eligible to go for gold at next year&rsquo;s World Juniors, which will be held north of the border in Alberta, Canada. Depending on where he winds up next season, whether with the Dallas Stars or their minor league affiliate, it&rsquo;s not farfetched that Campbell could add to his championship trophy case.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Each time I can represent my country it&rsquo;s a special honor,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If I could do it again I would certainly want to come back and help the U.S. win another gold medal.&rdquo;</p>
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<a href="/issue/2011-02">2011-02</a> </div>
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http://www.usahockeymagazine.com/article/2011-02/jack-campbell-m%E2%80%99m-m%E2%80%99m-great#comments2011 world junior championshipJack CampbellFeatureThu, 27 Jan 2011 21:53:23 +0000admin3887 at http://www.usahockeymagazine.comShufflin’ Off To Buffalohttp://www.usahockeymagazine.com/article/2011-02/shufflin%E2%80%99-buffalo
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U.S. Juniors Make History By Winning Bronze On Home Ice </div>
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By:&nbsp;</div>
<a href="/node/12">Harry Thompson</a> </div>
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<p>Like most hockey coaches, Keith Allain deals in the here and now. His position doesn&rsquo;t afford him the opportunity to look beyond the next practice, the next game or the next road trip.</p>
<p>As the head coach of the U.S. National Junior Team, Allain&rsquo;s focus needed to be even more intense, with a full season&rsquo;s worth of work crammed into a condensed schedule surrounding one of the most prestigious tournaments on the international schedule.</p>
<p>On those rare occasions when Allain could afford himself a brief mental holiday, he would dream what it would be like to win a gold medal at the 2011 IIHF World Junior Championship.</p>
<p>He envisioned the seconds winding down as the home crowd in Buffalo counted with him. He pictured the sea of Canadian red and white parting as the Stars and Stripes waved wide and high. He felt the weight of a gold medal hanging around his neck. And he could hear his players, locked arm-in-arm across the blue line, singing <br /><span class="inline inline-right"><img src="http://ushockeymagazine.com/sites/default/files/images/SMD47968.jpg" alt="" title="" class="image image-_original " width="250" height="163" /></span><br />The Star-Spangled Banner at the tops of their young lungs.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve certainly pictured the atmosphere of what it would be like,&rdquo; said Allain, who was coaching his third U.S. National Junior Team. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s part of our driving motivation. I think it would be a pretty special moment.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The final day of the tournament proved to be everything Allain could have imagined. The only difference was that this time the U.S. squad was not playing for the medal of their dreams. </p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to win a medal in this event, period,&rdquo; Allain said. &ldquo;The competition is tough, and you&rsquo;re playing a lot of games in a short period of time. If you have a bad night on any given night it&rsquo;s going to cost you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Still, winning the bronze medal, the first of any kind ever won on U.S. soil, could not tarnish the special moment for a special group of American hockey players.<br />&ldquo;We had our hearts set on gold,&rdquo; said Chris Kreider, one of eight returning players from last year&rsquo;s gold-medal winning team. &ldquo;But I think every team that comes to this tournament has their hearts set on gold and dreams of winning that gold medal.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Those hearts were broken two nights earlier. The one slip up Allain referred to came at the worst possible time. The old adage, &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t have to win all the games in a tournament, you just have to win the right ones,&rdquo; turned out to be true once again.</p>
<p>After cruising through the prelim<span class="inline inline-left"><img src="http://ushockeymagazine.com/sites/default/files/images/SMD44784.jpg" alt="" title="" class="image image-_original " width="250" height="167" /></span>inary round with four straight wins and a bye into the semifinals, the U.S. stumbled in prime time with a 4&ndash;1 clunker against Canada. The game that everyone wanted to see turned out to be not much of a game as the U.S. came out flat and did little to silence the partisan Canadian crowd that filled the HSBC Arena throughout the 11-day tournament.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Quite frankly the way we played tonight we didn&rsquo;t deserve to win,&rdquo; said Allain, who was on sabbatical from his full-time post as the head coach of Yale University. &ldquo;One of the great things about hockey is you usually get what you deserve.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The loss left the Americans at a crossroads. They could mourn the missed opportunity and pack it in, or they could show their pride in the USA crest and rebound against a Swedish team that Allain called the class of the tournament.</p>
<p>The Americans chose the latter, picking themselves up and dusting themselves off to play their best game of the tournament with a poised and passionate effort on their way to a 4&ndash;2 victory.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We were definitely trying to make some kind of a statement,&rdquo; said Kyle Palmieri, who set up a pair of goals against Sweden. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t want to be remembered as a team that didn&rsquo;t show up and win a medal.&rdquo;<br /><span class="inline inline-right"><img src="http://ushockeymagazine.com/sites/default/files/images/new-celebrate-world-junior-2011.jpg" alt="" title="" class="image image-_original " width="250" height="181" /></span><br />Instead, this U.S. squad will be remembered as the first to win back-to-back medals at a World Juniors, and the first to claim a medal of any sort on home soil. <br />More important than the medals, the coaching staff was proud of the way their young charges handled the adversity.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I think mental toughness is one of the most important traits to be successful as a hockey player and as a hockey team,&rdquo; Allain said. </p>
<p>&ldquo;This game of ours constantly challenges you, and people who rise to the top and have an opportunity to win a medal are the ones who can handle the down times as well as the up times. </p>
<p>&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m most proud of with this group is how they responded to not playing well the other night. They came back and had a great start in the game today and were able to push through even after falling behind. That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ll remember most about this group.&rdquo;</p>
<p>That&rsquo;s what the players will remember as well.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There are things that you&rsquo;ll remember 20 years down the line, long after your playing days are done,&rdquo; said Emerson Etem, whose on-ice play helped fans forget his off-ice technical indiscretions. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll always remember being with these guys who battled to win the bronze.&rdquo;</p>
<p>As they headed back to their respective team, some back to the collegiate ranks and others to their professional clubs, they can take pride in the thought that they didn&rsquo;t pack it in when times got tough, they played for their coach, they played for each other and, most of all, they played for the crest on the front of their jerseys. </p>
<p>&nbsp;&ldquo;This could be the last time I wear the USA jersey,&rdquo; said Jerry D&rsquo;Amigo, who came up through the USA Hockey ranks as a member of the National Team Development Program. </p>
<p>&ldquo;I wanted to make a mark while wearing it, and a lot of the guys feel the same way. We played with pride and passion out there. Everything the coach wanted us to do we did. It just shows what we&rsquo;re made of.&rdquo;</p>
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<p>The sting of losing out on another gold medal will be tempered by the thought that they have done something no other U.S. National Junior Team has done before. They also know they are part of a proud program with a bright future that will compete for many more medals not only at future World Juniors tournaments but at all levels of the game.</p>
<p>&nbsp;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sign of the depth and breadth of the quality players that USA Hockey is producing that we can be a competitor in this tournament on a year-to-year basis,&rdquo; Allain said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no design that we have players from 12 different states, it&rsquo;s that we have good players playing from 12 different states who were able to make this team. The future is bright for USA Hockey because of that.&rdquo;</p>
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<a href="/issue/2011-02">2011-02</a> </div>
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http://www.usahockeymagazine.com/article/2011-02/shufflin%E2%80%99-buffalo#comments2011 world junior championshipFeatureThu, 27 Jan 2011 21:34:14 +0000admin3878 at http://www.usahockeymagazine.com